10 Famous Successful Persons Who Overcame Huge Obstacles
We look at some people and we see how successful, famous and talented they are. We imagine it was all easy for them and we wish we were in their shoes. But was it easy? Not for these 10 Famous Successful Persons Who Overcame Huge Obstacles.
I was once told by an entrepreneur that he failed 10 times before he actually had the successful business he runs now. All I could think about was that 10 times is a lot and how did he managed to keep himself motivated.
If there is something we need to accept about life is that we will fail, maybe more than once, but you will never know if there is something great out there for you, unless you try and believe in yourself.
You will be surprised how many talented celebrities were rejected, fired and told they were no good. Let’s see their stories:
10Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg got rejected from film school … three times.
I always thought that classic education is a little overrated and this proves my theory. One of the most prolific filmmakers of all time, the man who brought us “Shindler’s List,” “Jaws,” “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” couldn’t get into the film school of his choice.
He was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times and eventually attended school at another location, only to drop out to become a director before finishing.
Thirty-five years after starting his degree, Spielberg returned to school in 2002 to finally complete his work and earn his BA.
“I wanted to accomplish this for many years as a thank-you to my parents for giving me the opportunity for an education and a career.”
9Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs was removed from the company he started.
He and his partner started Apple in his parents garage when he was 20. They worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of them in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.
After all that work, when he had just turned 30, he got fired. You might wonder how can you get fired from a company you started. Well, as Apple grew they hired someone who Jobs thought was very talented to run the company with him.
But then their visions of the future began to diverge and eventually they had a falling out. When that happened, the Board of Directors sided with him.
However, he stayed strong and managed to return to Apple and created several iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad, which have changed the face of consumer technology forever.
“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
8Bill Gates
Bill Gates’ first business failed.
Yes, Bill Gates, one of the most famous self make billionaires in the world had to overcome some obstacles too.
Gates’ first company, Traf-O-Data was a big nasty failure. Its objective was ‘to read the raw data from roadway traffic counters and create reports for traffic engineers‘. In this way, the company would optimize traffic and end road congestion.
The company’s product was the Traf-O-Data 8008, a device which could read traffic tapes and process the data. He and his partner, Paul Allen, tried to sell it but their first demo failed because the machine ‘didn’t work’, recalled Gates.
How many of you would have given up at this point? Well, these 2 didn’t and this is how Paull Allen summarised the experience:
‘Even though Traf-O-Data wasn’t a roaring success, it was seminal in preparing us to make Microsoft’s first product a couple of years later’
They kept working and that was the best decision they ever made as Microsoft became the largest personal-computer software company in the world.
7J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling lived on welfare.
From living as a single mother on state benefits to a multi-millionaire today, J.K. Rowling has come a long way from her early days of struggle.
In the early 1990s, Rowling had just gotten divorced and was living on welfare with a dependent child. She completed most of the first “Harry Potter” book in cafes, as walking around with her daughter, Jessica, was the best way to get her to sleep.
Many times, Rowling has attributed her considerable achievements to her ability to focus all her attention on the things that mattered to her the most.
The “Harry Potter” franchise has become a worldwide success and J.K. Rowling is now worth an estimated $1 billion.
6The Beatles
The Beatles were dropped by their first record label.
Could you imagine that one of the biggest legends of music industry were once told that they have no future in showbusiness? When I heard that, the only thing that came through my mind was: Who was that fool?
After recording fifteen tracks for the now infamous Decca Audition, the Beatles were told that “guitar groups are on their way out” and “the Beatles have no future in show business.”
Decca instead chose a group called the Tremoloes, who were local and would not cost as much money. This ill-fated decision is widely considered to be one of the biggest mistakes in music history!
Huge mistake Decca Audition. The joke is on you!
5Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey used to be homeless.
Imagine you are a teenager and your biggest dream is becoming a comedian. Unfortunately, your family is going through a period of severe financial hardship and you have to drop out of school to support your family.
This is exactly what happened to Jim Carrey when he was just 15. His father was an unemployed musician and as the family went from “lower middle class to poor,” they eventually had to start living in a van.
Carrey was a natural performer even as a child, to the point of regularly doing stand-up routines for his class-mates in junior high.
Even though he was in such terrible situation he never gave up and he actually had his dad driving him to comedy clubs in Toronto. He moved to Los Angeles in 1979 and eventually caught the attention of Rodney Dangerfield, who signed Carrey to open for him during his tour.
Soon after that, he started starring in mega-blockbusters and being known as one of the best comedic actors of an era.
4Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
He was left out of the varsity basketball team because he was only 5’9” at that time. His taller classmate Leroy Smith had won the last spot on the team.
A young Michael Jordan went home and cried in the privacy of his bedroom, but decided not to stop trying. In his own words: “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
He made up his mind that he would never have to face a similar situation ever again and started practicing every day after that, making it a point to take out time for his practice daily without fail. He soon shot up to 6’3”, made the team the next year and never had to look back after that.
He believed in his dream, won NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award five times in his career and dominated the sports field for more than a decade in the ‘90s.
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
3Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron witnessed her mother kill her father.
Born in a South African farming community, at 15 she saw her mother shoot and kill her alcoholic father in self-defense after he threatened to murder them both. For most of us, that trauma would have immobilized any ambition, but Theron channelled her energy into making a name for herself.
A year later, Charlize moved to Milan to model, having won a contest her mother had entered her in. When 18-year-old Charlize Theron arrived in Hollywood in 1994, she had a single, tattered suitcase, $400, and a very big dream—to find her way in the movie business.
Just ten years later, Charlize was walking across a stage to accept the Academy Award® for Best Actress.
2Jay-Z
At first, Jay-Z couldn’t get signed to any record labels.
Although TIME ranked him as one of 2013’s Most Influential People In The World and he has created an empire, Jay-Z struggled to achieve this success.
He came from a Brooklyn neighborhood and had dreams to make it big as a rapper. Unfortunately, the rest of the world didn’t agree with him at first. Not one record label would sign him.
Yet that didn’t stop him from creating his own music powerhouse. His label would eventually turn into the insanely lucrative Roc-A-Fella Records.
Sometimes rejection does not mean you’re not good for it, it just means you have to keep on going until it’s the right time for you.
1Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey was told she was “unfit for TV.”
Isn’t that funny? Telling Oprah, who is now worth $2.7 billion, that she is unfit for TV, given the fact that she now actually has her own television?
She grew up in Milwaukee, Wis. and was repeatedly molested by her cousin, uncle and a family friend. She eventually ran away from home, and at age 14 gave birth to a baby boy who shortly died after.
You would imagine that’s all the bad a person can get in a lifetime. But the story continues. She managed to get a job at a radio station and then she became a television reporter.
But, at age of 22, the now-TV mogul was fired from her job because she was “unfit for tv.” Winfrey was terminated from her post as co-anchor of the 6 o’clock weekday news on Baltimore’s WJZ-TV after the show received low ratings.
Winfrey has called it the “first and worst failure of her TV career.”
Then, she was demoted to morning TV, where she found her voice and met fellow newbie Gayle King, who would one day become her producer and editor of O, The Oprah Magazine.
And the Oprah name became an empire. All that hard work and perseverance paid off.
I hope I inspired you to start working on realising your dreams and achieving happiness.
There is no better moment than right now to start living the life you want!
